What Animal Causes Leprosy
But it was hard to prove as long as both humans and armadillos were carrying fairly generic readily available strains of the bacteria strains that could have come from anywhere.
What animal causes leprosy. They also detected the bacteria in a necropsy sample. Armadillos are known to carry leprosy in fact they are the only wild animals other than humans upon which the picky m. Wild nine banded armadillos dasypus novemcinctus in south central united states often carry mycobacterium leprae.
Besides humans the only animals known to develop leprosy in nature are new world armadillos and african primates. Leprosy lesions appear mainly in cooler body regions such as the skin and mucous membranes of the upper respiratory tract. They can contract and carry the ancient skin disease that affects humans called leprosy.
The illness in chimps suggests that the leprosy causing bacterium is lurking elsewhere either living on the animal the chimps hunt or even in the environment the magazine said. A subset of the infected individuals recalled having been in direct contact with armadillos. Hansens disease also known as leprosy is an infection caused by slow growing bacteria called mycobacterium leprae.
Leprosy is a contagious chronic disease caused by mycobacterium leprae a rod shaped bacterium. The disease is also called hansens disease after a norwegian doctor armauer hansen. Leprosy is also known as hansens disease after the scientist who discovered m.
They are native to the americas and they share an odd trait in common with humans. To confirm the diagnosis the team collected poop samples and detected the presence of the bacteria that causes leprosy mycobacterium leprae. The armadillo is a strange looking mammal with a shell that rolls up in a ball to protect itself.
This is believed to be because armadillos have such a low body temperature. Leprae can stand to live and scientists suspected that these anomalous cases were due to contact with the little armored tootsie rolls. Leprosy is caused by a slow growing type of bacteria called mycobacterium leprae m.
In 2011 the new england journal of medicine published an article formally linking the creature to human leprosy. A study of wild nine banded armadillos dasypus novemcinctus and people living with leprosy in the southern united states found that the armadillos and humans were infected with a nearly identical strain of the leprosy bacillus. Armadillos are the only other animals besides humans to host the leprosy bacillus.